


Ficlet - Discoveries

by Shadow_of_Quill



Series: Daemonic Naruto [4]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemon, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-05
Updated: 2012-01-05
Packaged: 2017-10-28 23:47:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/313502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadow_of_Quill/pseuds/Shadow_of_Quill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An unpleasant response to Naruto's slip leads to a couple of unexpected discoveries.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ficlet - Discoveries

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Askerian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Askerian/gifts).



Word of what had happened quickly spread throughout the village. Naruto was expecting to be treated worse than usual - he'd touched, not one, but two people's daemons, and that was - you didn't _do_ that.

So when he noticed too much attention being paid to him, he just hunched his shoulders a little and tried to find a smaller alley, a more abandoned road, instead of playing up to the stares and condemnation the way he usually did.

He didn't dare go near the ramen stand, in case they'd heard and hated him now, too. He just headed for his apartment, going by the quietest, most out-of-other-people's-way route he could find, and hoped that he'd make it without being caught.

He wasn't sure what they'd do if they got hold of him, but he knew it would be bad.

He found out just how bad when an ex-ANBU came up behind him, managing to hide even from _his_ danger-sharpened senses.

If it weren't for the ANBU guarding him on the Hokage's orders, no one would have stopped the beating before it killed him. If there hadn't been ANBU who placed obeying the Hokage above everything, even their own shock and disgust at the rumours of what had happened, the hospital would have refused to treat him, Hokage's orders be damned.

If not for that, the Jinchuuriki would never have been healed - and the Kyuubi might well have found a hole in its prison to escape from.

As it was, Naruto slowly came around to find himself in a large dark room that looked like a cross between a sewer and a prison, with large, thick bars blocking part of it off - and a very excited daemon hovering over him in the form of a hummingbird, who was chattering eagerly, "Come on, wake up already! You've been lying here for _ages_ \- oh, you're awake. Yay!"

"Huh?" Naruto managed, sitting up. "Where am I?"

"Inside, silly," the daemon answered him, changing to an orange gecko and staring at him intently.

"Inside where?"

"Your head! Honestly, don't you recognise it?" The daemon developed eyelids just so that she could blink at him. "You don't, do you? I guess I should have realised you wouldn't, you've never really been here, and it is a bit -" she switched to a monkey, and grimaced, "ugly, because of that bastard." She waved a paw in the direction of the bars.

Something growled, deep and threatening. Naruto stared. "What was that?"

"That's just Kyuubi," the daemon said dismissively. "Don't worry about him, he can't get out as long as the seal's intact."

"Kyuubi?" Naruto almost squeaked. "But that's - the Yondaime killed the Kyuubi, everyone knows that!"

"Killed me?" A deep red glow appeared in the darkness behind the bars, and Naruto almost flinched when he realised it was an eye - an eye that was larger than he was tall. "Killed _me_? That little worm? I could have _eaten_ him!"

Naruto flinched at the comment, but the Kyuubi's attitude was just like that of some of the villagers, who were all, 'We'd kill you in a heartbeat if the Hokage would let us'. Naruto knew exactly how to respond to that attitude. "Well you didn't, and he beat you, so nyah!" he told it, sticking his tongue out, and then laughed with delight when he realised that the daemon had done exactly the same thing. In fact, she'd been bright (like him) and loud (like him) and refusing to back down (like him)... He stared at her with slow-dawning amazement.

She giggled. "Sorry, I didn't think to introduce myself!" She shifted into a golden many-tailed fox, and spun in a quick circle. "I'm Tora, and I'm your daemon!"

"I have a daemon?" he asked wonderingly, running his hands over her fur, and adding immediately, "Why did you just turn into a fox?"

"It's a nice shape," she told him, preening under his petting. "About the only nice thing I've picked up from _him_ ," with another dismissive wave at the cage holding the Kyuubi. "And of course you have a daemon, stupid - if you didn't, you'd have no soul! It's just - I just can't _leave_ here."

"Why not?" he asked, upset. He'd just been thinking - he had a daemon, so that proved that he wasn't a monster, and that meant that it was okay that he'd touched Sakura and Sasuke, he didn't have to be punished for it. But it didn't help at all if he couldn't _show_ people that he had a daemon; they'd just accuse him of lying about it, and he'd get into even worse trouble.

"Because if I did it would weaken the seal, and that bastard fox might be able to get out." She pulled down her eyelid at the Kyuubi, who snarled, but didn't react. "A daemon's body is made of lots of energy, you know, so my body got pulled into strengthening the bars that hold him in. So I can't have a body - I mean, I can still tell what's happening outside, I just can't join in." Her ears sank, and she turned into a rabbit and jumped into his arms, hiding her head in the crook of his elbow. "It sucks," she said, voice muffled. "I hate it."

Naruto sighed and cuddled her. (Even if she couldn't leave his head, it was beyond awesome to actually hold his own daemon!) "Yeah. Me too." He forced himself to brighten up. "But hey, now I know you're here, I can come visit you! Ooh, ohohoh, did you feel it when I touched Ekusa and Raksu? Do you think I can bring them in here to meet you?" He got more excited as he thought about new possibilities, new things he could do with what was available to him. Tora brightened up similarly, equally enthused by the thought of finally meeting Ekusa and Raksu face-to-face, and they started chattering at each other eagerly, interrupting each other's words and talking over each other as they schemed to find a way to turn this into something good.

Kyuubi brought them down to earth with a sneer. "You're going to introduce them to me?"

Naruto and Tora stopped dead. They couldn't bring the other daemons here. Having your daemon inside your head was one thing. It was a little weird, but it would be a relief - it would prove that Naruto wasn't a monster. But having the Kyuubi in there? Even if it was very clearly a separate being, they'd still...

"They'd be scared of us," Tora whimpered, becoming a mouse who ran and hid up Naruto's sleeve.

Naruto swallowed hard, as if something was stuck in his throat, and shook her out so he could hug her tightly. She turned into a bearcub and hugged him back. "So we'll figure out something else," he said staunchly. "We've got time, right?"

"The rest of our lives," she answered with a 'smile' that probably wasn't meant to be so sad.

"And I'm good at coming up with stuff, and I bet you are, too, so we'll just come up with something this time and everything'll be great!" He gave a determined nod, and she nodded back.

"Spare me," growled the Kyuubi, rolling its eyes. Naruto deliberately turned his back on it, and sat cuddling Tora as they tried to pretend that things were great.

Their conversation kept petering out, until he finally had to admit it: "I've gotta go back outside, don't I?" he asked wistfully.

"Yeah."

"I'm gonna come back as often as I can," he reassured her, because she was part of him, and that meant that even though she already knew she could trust him she'd really like to hear him say it.

"I know that!" She sounded just a little insulted that he thought he needed to tell her, but he knew that she was pleased by the reassurance.

"I'm gonna miss you," he added softly, shooting a dubious look over his shoulder at the Kyuubi (who seemed to be asleep).

"...Yeah."

Naruto forced himself to wake up.


End file.
